


Unexpected

by darkershadeofbright



Category: Mary Russell - Laurie R. King
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, F/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkershadeofbright/pseuds/darkershadeofbright
Summary: Russell is home from Oxford for winter hols.  Holmes is tasked with retrieving a book from her room, and makes an uncomfortable, and unexpected, revelation.Holmes' POV
Kudos: 25





	Unexpected

Winter holidays were here. Holmes had not realized how much he had relied on--nay, missed--his young apprentice until he’d seen her Morris driving up the lane towards his Sussex cottage. The way his heart began to beat more solidly and insistently in his breast at the sight of those headlights, Holmes chalked up to the expected thrill of having her help him with his latest chemical tincture. Smiles and embraces for Mrs. Hudson, she had, and a firm handshake and grin for him, and she was off. She unloaded her luggage--and he realized that she was home. She hadn’t even gone to her aunt’s house, but had come straight here. Something in him warmed to realize that.

They’d had a cozy and cheerful evening, it being Christmas eve and all. A fire crackled merrily in the grate; candles were lit. Mrs. Hudson had prepared a lovely roast with potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, and an apple tart for afters, and Russell had cheerfully regaled the Mrs. Hudson and Holmes about her life at Oxford, the theatrical society she’d joined, her classes and tutorials, and her group of friends. She was growing, Holmes knew, and he didn’t hate the direction--not away from her life in Sussex, but in addition to it, developing new interests that enriched her character but didn’t change her so drastically that she no longer belonged here. He hoped--with a deep pang of longing--that this trajectory would continue. Children grow, however, he knew. Young women grew, too.

Then it was Christmas, of course, and they carried on with the exchange of presents and pleasantries. Holmes had provided Russell with a lovely new pen and a set of leather-bound notebooks for her studies; he’d been proud of his selection, seeing that the hand-tooled floral covers had a combined aura of stateliness and femininity that he’d thought would please her, and he’d been right. She’d given him some books on new developments in American forensic science she’d ordered from a bookshop in Oxford, which he’d hungrily devoured after she’d gone to bed, the light of the fire waning as he read.

The next day, Russell woke up early and lounged around in a shirt and a pair of her father’s old trousers which she kept folded up in a drawer in the bedroom he and Mrs. Hudson reserved for her. Holmes himself slept in for longer than usual, lulled by the air of peace that had descended over the property at her arrival and hadn’t left yet. When he awoke and stumbled into the front parlor to find her engrossed in her lessons, he tried coaxing her into his laboratory, but she’d demurred until later in the afternoon, saying she really needed to get some reading done for her theology lecture. So, he’d gone about his routine in the lab without her.

She was curled up on the floor and wrapped in an old afghan, struggling with a particularly nasty translation in Hebrew, glasses askew, golden hair piled on top of her head in a disorderly bun, when he emerged to collect on her promise. “If you’d go up to my room and get my Hebrew dictionary, it would save me a lot of time, and then I’ll be done sooner and can assist you with whatever foul-smelling concoction you need my help with,” she told him, her eyebrows raised imperiously. “It’s in the top compartment of my valise.”

_How did I ever allow this young chit to order me around so in my own home_ , he wondered to himself, a small smile playing on his lips as he ascended the stairs.

Normally Russell’s door was closed, and normally had no need to step inside, since all it contained were known quantities--her bed with its linens that Mrs. Hudson aired out for her stays there; her chest of drawers with its usual collection of old, comfortable, and masculine clothing, with one of his own old pairs of brogues stuffed with paper, tucked underneath it (for her walks on the downs, after her last pair had worn through); her vanity, with its sparse detritus of combs and creams. A single glance of his hawk’s eyes from the threshold was usually enough to convince him, on his evening walk-throughs of the house, that nothing was amiss. But he’d never set foot into her quarters when she was in residence, and so he wasn’t prepared for the experience when he entered. The scent he’d come to associate with her, vanilla and bergamot, assaulted him in a most pleasing manner. He stood there for a minute, eyes closed, taking it in. She’d bathed the night before, he surmised, which is why the scent lingered so strongly in the air--it must be the oil she used in her hair to keep it soft and smooth. Opening his eyes, he immediately located her valise on top of her dresser, half-open as if she’d been half-asleep when she awoke and searched through it this morning or yesterday. Like him, she’d never been especially tidy. Sparing a glance at the bed, rumpled and unmade--he touched his hand to the soft white coverlet--he strode over to the dresser and peered into the top of the brown case.

The small blue book she wanted was right where she’d said it would be, on top of a stack of other books. He put it into the pocket of his trousers, and then noticed what was underneath it.

_Sons and Lovers_ was definitely not what he’d expected to find in the bag of the girl he’d known these last few years.

Holmes had a passing knowledge of the author, D. H. Lawrence--the papers were full of stories about the scandals his books had raised and the merits of censorship, and he and his brother had had many a lively discussion about the necessity, or stupidity, of protecting the British public from all things deemed “obscene.” As a man of the last century, Holmes himself was intimately aware of the fact that most people only labelled “obscene” what they dearly wished to know more about, but were afraid of being discovered with by their neighbors and colleagues. He surmised that the era of Queen Victoria would one day be remembered as a much less salacious, more prudish era than it had, in actuality, been, because of society's need to cover up anything resembling natural human desire. The truth, of course, was that he’d lived through some wild times, and would likely not have found work as a consulting detective if everything had been as precious and sanitized as those guardians of culture would have one believe.

That being said, the thought of this darling girl downstairs reading something “obscene,” something contraband like this, raised his hackles the tiniest bit.

He picked up the volume. From its front cover fell a piece of paper: “To Mary. I hope you enjoy your continued education. Happy reading. And I need not tell you, but you’d best keep this book to yourself. It will be our little secret. Your sincere friend, Jim.” This was written in a strong, confident handwriting, no signs of hesitation or modesty. The paper was watermarked from one of the finest stationer’s shops in London.

_Who is Jim?_ Holmes wracked his brain, but even with his eidetic memory, he could not find so much as a mention of someone called Jim in Mary’s revelations about her collegiate exploits. He put the letter back inside the front cover. As he glanced through the text of the book, he found no other notes, although he did see some underlining and jocular note-taking in a couple of the more suggestive moments of the story ( _Russell, you shouldn’t be reading about such things, should you? Russell, you naughty thing!_ ).

How does it happen, he wondered, that such a young person--however precocious--could suddenly learn, or be taught, of the adult world and all its vicissitudes so soon?

He pictured Russell reading this account of sexual awakenings--

And knew that she was not a girl anymore. She was...dear God, somehow she was a grown woman, despite retaining the nimble mind and body of her recent youth.

He didn’t know this Jim, but he wanted to kill him. He pushed that instinct down as far as it would go. _Have they-- have she and Jim--_ he wouldn’t let his mind finish the question. _What’s this feeling?_ Holmes asked himself. _Is it some kind of fatherly protectiveness? I surely never felt it for her before she matriculated at Oxford._ He refused to entertain the possibility that it could be anything less familial.

Until.

A slip of white fabric caught his eye at the foot of the dresser. Something she’d worn that she must have aimed at the laundry hamper and missed. (This was unlike her--she was usually an excellent markswoman; he chalked it up to exhaustion.) He picked up the garment--

A pair of silky white knickers, trimmed in the most delicate and refined lace. Not the garment of a girl, but fitted for the curved arse and hips of a woman.

He swallowed.

Unbidden, images of her long legs clad only in this slip of fabric bombarded him.

His sensitive nose could detect that vanilla and bergamot scent here, too, and something else, something...womanly. The scent of her sex.

He couldn’t help himself. He brought them to his lips. Felt the silk that covered her nether regions, soft against the skin of his face.

In a flash he pictured her there, on the bed, legs splayed open for him, head thrown back, his lips and tongue making delicate love to her breasts, his fingers working inside her, preparing her for his hard length--

“Oh dear,” he muttered to himself.

He dropped the knickers on the ground, where he’d found them. He replaced the racy novel in her valise, and exited her bedroom.

He made a quick trip into his own chamber, allowing him time to collect himself and adjust his trousers to cover his arousal. He smoked a cigarette. Then a second one.

Then he went back downstairs and all but tossed the dictionary at her. She caught it, the afghan slipping off her shoulders as she did so. He could see through the linen of her shirt that she wore no brassiere. _Damnation_ , he thought.

She’d been so preoccupied, she hadn’t even registered how long he’d been upstairs. He retreated into his lab without a word. He didn’t prod her to join him again, and she got caught up in her translation for the rest of the day.

If he was more brusque than usual with her for the rest of her Christmas holidays, she didn’t seem to notice. _Which is as it should be_ , he noted with a sigh as he buried himself in his work.


End file.
